


Come In From The Cold

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Associates to friends., Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2361014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another exercise. The goal in this was to work a trope backward from my own norms, and definitely from usual fic assumptions. In this case I'm attempting to play with warm and cool, reserve and emotional intimacy, and play them from a very different POV and expectation. I love to ask myself questions about how a character's facade differs from his or her core traits--how impressions differ from reality. How what you see can be conditioned by surface illusions. </p><p>Within that, I just wanted to try a very different moment of intimacy between Mycroft and Lestrade. See if you like.</p><p>The title is taken from Joni Mitchell's song of the same name. The two are thematically related, if not in lockstep with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come In From The Cold

Unlike most people, Greg knew Mycroft from the start as a man with family. There was the obvious, of course: Sherlock, that great squalling infant clinging eternally to Mycroft’s trouser-leg while wailing out his need for independence. Greg was always positioned to see what Mycroft gave and what Sherlock took, and as a result he built a very different image of both men than did others. John, for instance, internalized Sherlock’s own self-evaluation and perception of his resented brother almost completely, mirroring it back to the world intact and unaltered in any great degree. If anything John’s view of both men was more simplistic, more black and white, and far less aware of the subtle layers of interdependence on both sides. Similarly he didn’t view Mycroft as most of his subordinates did, having seen the fear in his eyes when Sherlock went missing on drug-fueled binges, or seen him go frigid and furious when Sherlock came back from the same whole and intact and insulting his brother for having been fool enough to worry over him.

Mycroft, to Greg, had been from the very start a man with a brother—a difficult, brilliant, complex brother Mycroft supported, irritated, overindulged, protected, and tried too often to control. Greg, like many a secret agent, was without family—orphaned late enough that the few years of fosterage until he was considered of age were more a quiet apprenticeship in independence than a chaotic term in purgatory. He’d stayed with a widowed aunt to whom he was not close, and who died a decade later in an automobile accident. His memories of family were warm, sentimental, and rather dim. He had married in hopes of replacing those faded mental photos with something warmer and more recent, only to discover that he either had no skill for marital togetherness, or his wife had none, or that somehow they didn’t have it with each other. They had no children. Greg didn’t grow close to his wife’s family.

His awareness of Mycroft, with his blazing comet of a brother and his Mummy and Father in their cottage in the country, lit every corner of those years. Where other people thought of Mycroft as cold and passionless, he thought of the man as warm and intense and intimate—so much so he could only manage his life and his career by banking the emotions down, and shielding the light of their burning from outsiders.

He knew about Mummy and Father—well, a number of ways. The first way, though, was always the one that came to mind when he thought of Mycroft and his family. He’d arrived at hospital to help transfer Sherlock out after an injury, only to be met by Mycroft and his little mob of minions all arrived to take Sherlock back to convalesce at Mycroft’s place in the country—a big manorial heap in Berkshire, only a quick jaunt from the city. He’d sided with Mycroft when Sherlock squalled that he wanted to go back to Montague Street, and joined the procession loading him up along with crutches and wheel chairs, and in the end had somehow found himself out at the family place drifting through rooms that looked like period set pieces to him—all grand, with big, comfortable, old, well-kept furniture and green vistas out every window.

He’d found a picture of Mycroft with his family: Mummy had been just starting to go round and her hair was still summer golden. Father still had dark hair, but he’d transitioned to cardigans already and was clearly going to become a darling duffer as he aged. Sherlock in that picture had been right at the edge of adulthood, still too gawky and crane-like to be beautiful, but Lestrade could look at him and just see the gorgeous, stellar adult waiting to make his grand entrance. The future glory seemed to shimmer over his long, bony face, and shine on every curl. The family stood together, Mummy and Father in the middle—content, loving, warm. Sherlock stood by Mummy, and Greg smiled, thinking there was really no question he was Mummy’s Little Boy. Mycroft stood at his father’s elbow, quieter, but regal and stellar in his own way. He looked proud and happy to be with his family: he was theirs, and they were his, and if he wasn’t quite in them and of them, he still loved them quite obviously. There was something in his stance and expression that said, “They are under my protection. Touch at your own risk.”

Over the years he had chances to see similar family portraits come through—one every few years, obviously taken to satisfy Mummy’s demands. He once saw Mycroft shepherding his parents across Queen’s Gate, toward the Dana Centre of Science and Technology. Another time he saw the three at a musical, Mycroft looking pained, but patient, Mummy and Father beaming as some showy tenor hit a high note that made their son wince.

He liked Mycroft for it—for all of it. Knowing what he did for his country didn’t hurt, but in the end for him Mycroft was memorable for being a devoted, caring son and brother.

When his marriage was rocky, he’d ask himself what Mycroft would do—and he’d know the answer. Mycroft would fight for a better outcome, while forgiving and accepting long beyond the point of rationality. He’d suck down far more than he ought to, because he cared about his family. So Lestrade worked at it, smiling, forgiving, letting go of his anger. He negotiated terms, he offered trust—and in the end, he failed.

For months after he felt as though that failure was branded into his skin, glowing like the mark of Cain whenever he was around Mycroft…which was too often. Now that his marriage didn’t demand his time, Mycroft was calling him in for more—not all of it relating to Sherlock. Greg didn’t know if he was honored or angry that Mycroft still trusted him with Sherlock. The boy was a brat, and unlike his brother, he couldn’t even be bothered to show he cared. But—Mycroft trusted him. With his brother—his beloved, difficult, exciting brother.

It felt like family by proxy, in a way. Greg was Sherlock’s almost-brother. He wondered once if that made him Mycroft’s almost-brother, too. He didn’t know how he felt about that. Warm and uneasy and unwilling all at once, perhaps. Determined to hang on to it, in any case.

During the years of Sherlock’s exile, Greg could feel the empty space in Mycroft’s life. Yes, he knew Sherlock was alive—but knew, too, that the prat was running dark, soaring solo on the wind, out of Mycroft’s control and often outside any hope of contact. Two years of pretending Sherlock was dead—and Mycroft’s performance was convincing, even to Greg, who knew better, and who had never believed Mycroft didn’t care.

Greg knew Mycroft’s delight when Sherlock came home. He knew his despair when the two brothers found themselves more distant than ever. He guessed, as few did, that Mycroft had hoped the years of MI6 work, chasing Moriarty’s people, would lead to Sherlock permanently allying with MI6. He guess, as none did, how much Mycroft regretted it not happening.

He knew, better than anyone at all, how Sherlock’s murder of Magnussen left Mycroft adrift, unsure how to proceed. Until then, his brother had always been his brother. From that point on, Sherlock was his brother—and he was a murderer. Greg could see Mycroft struggle with the conflict, and falter in the face of competing ideals.

He found himself growing closer to Mycroft, even as Mycroft grew more silent and withdrawn. Sometimes Lestrade felt like a great grey wolf padding at Mycroft’s side—a lone wolf seduced into partnership with Mycroft, drawn by his subtle warmth, by the lure of the relationships Mycroft had and fought for, that Lestrade lived without.

“I think it is time to let go,” Mycroft said, one day, out of nowhere. “Sherlock’s found his place and his people. He can always call on me if he needs me, but it’s time to admit he’s just not my baby brother any more.” He shifted on the park bench where they’d rendezvoused, then looked wryly at Lestrade, who leaned on the back of the bench beside him, head almost even with Mycroft’s own. “You’ll keep an eye on him, won’t you?”

“Might better ask John and Mary that. He’s with them more than with me, now.” He gave a crooked grin. “I’m your man, now, really.” Of course he was nothing of the sort, he thought. He was…MI5’s man. The Met’s man. The orphan divorcé—no kin, no children, no family.

Mycroft studied him. “However does such a warm and decent man come to consider himself bound to _my_ service?” he asked, voice mild and calm. The question was clearly rhetorical. He expected no answer. “You’ve got so many people who care for you, and you end up for some reason here with me.” He gave a bitter smile. “You know that Moriarty called me ‘The Iceman’? It’s always so demoralizing when one’s enemies strike so close to the heart.”

Greg considered, then said, “Moriarty always was an arse. Too busy with his own cleverness to see what was right under his nose.”

“You think him wrong?”

Greg was silent, leaning on his elbows, forearms crossed along the back of the bench. He was bent over, arse out, one knee cocked, the other leg thrusting hard back, bracing him. He watched the pedestrians walk by. He watched a dog chase a pigeon. He watched nothing much at all. At last he said, “I’ve worked with you all these years for the warmth.” He sighed. “I used to ask myself what you’d do, when I was married. It made a better man of me—a better husband—even if it didn’t save my marriage. So, yeah. Like a wild-thing lying by a campfire. I’m there to escape from the cold.”

“But…”

Greg could hear the confusion and doubt in Mycroft’s voice. He sighed again. “Mycroft, you’re so patient with them all. Your family. Your people. You don’t ask them to be perfect. You…abide. Your parents, Sherlock. This entire silly, fading nation, with dreams of past glory and fears of future eclipse. They are yours, and you love them, and that’s enough. Yeah. Warm, Mycroft. Just because Moriarty’s too stupid to see it, doesn’t make him right.”

They were silent so long Greg was finanlly forced to turn his face, to see if Mycroft still breathed, or had frozen solid and died in place on the bench. When he looked, the other man’s eyes were still and quiet and wondering.

“I always thought of you as the warmth,” he breathed.

“Me?” Greg snorted. “I’m a lad’s lad. Care for nowt. Tough as oak, persistent as a bloodhound, fierce as a badger. But not warm. If I were warm my marriage might have lasted.”

“She was never the right choice,” Mycroft said. “With anyone else, it might have worked.”

“People don’t stay with me…or I don’t stay with them.”

Mycroft blinked those clever, pale eyes, and said, “You’ve stayed with me.”

Something sparked between them—light and laughter and sunshine and hope.

“Yeah. I have.”

“I’ve stayed with you.”

“True-dat.”

The look between them lasted, and lasted—and when at last their eyes turned away, it was somehow a settled thing. Not the how, or the what, or even the why. But the core of it—two men who would abide, together, each one lured by the other’s warmth.

A half an hour later, as the sun dipped low and the park went grey and a light mist began to cover everything in a slick layer of condensed fog, Mycroft said, “Why don’t we go home?”

Greg said, “Yes,” without asking which home, or whose, because it didn’t matter in the least, so long as Mycroft was there, too.


End file.
